Film Noir

In no more than a paragraph, define “film noir”. How did it influence the movies? Is “film noir” still around today and in what ways? Please elaborate.

Film noir is a French label on the American film phenomenon. It wasn’t until Post-war France that they could see many American films. The French observed the relationship between American movies in the forties and literature called “roman noir”, which means dark literature and film noir means black film. The term was not used very much in production and only French critics used it during the noir era. Noir also breaks the generic conventions, as other films classed as genres can be noir films also; like noir musicals, noir gangster films, noir comedy or noir horror.

Watching film noirs, I have noticed some elements which they all have in common. One of the techniques used is the very low key lighting which obscures the action. The uses of night and shadows are a recurring factor in noir films, emphasizing coldness and darkness. In the films, the world often seems like a prison.

Generally, in film noir there are two typical female characters in noirs; the sexual and active spider woman and the maternal virgin. The femme fatale of the film uses her sexual attractiveness and cold-blooded cunningness to manipulate men in order to gain power, independence or money. She rejects the conventional roles of a devoted and loving mother and wife which mainstream society enforces for women, and in the end her violation of the social and traditional norms leads to her own destruction and of the men that are attracted to her. Also, the family relations are not normal. They are based on the absence of the family, or often represented as broken up, whereas before the family “served as social stability”, they are often concerned with loss of family values and the satisfactions